irony is at least for the distance of my life span, tech is pretty much here to stay. have an array of other skill-sets aquired through the years. welding being one, electronics another, worked for several years as a vet tech, fairly decent glass blower, pretty good with a sewing machine, owned volkswagens for most of my life so decent mechanical skills (combustion engine, simple electronics, etc), have traveled fairly extensively on land through north and central america doing fire performance and making jewelry for tourists, imagine some combination of the above and whatever I can muster up in a time of need.. need to get some more diving under my belt, and maybe some work with underwater welding, feel they would be a good combination of skills to travel with. Health care is definitely not going away but its more time spent here getting trained in human health compared to animal, though re-vamping the vet tech experience may serve as beneficial too. The many possibilities of freedom

Run drugs, guns and liquor. When I was in the Coast Guard that seemed like the business most live-aboards were in. We were constantly being reminded to not overlook Ma and Pa on their sailboat when doing boardings. We would frequently review cases where a sailboat was boarded and the 70+ year old Grandmother and Grandfather had large quantities of illegal drugs on board.

I think from a practical standpoint unless you work part of the year and cruise the rest or are independently wealthy, bartering is the only real way to get the items you need like fuel and provisions.

I don't know why no one has mentioned the traditional trades of being a merchant of food stuffs and other products.

I'm really big on nutrition and healthy eating. There is a large movement of organic, locavore, fair-trade no-carbon high-end food stuff with relatively big margins by comparison to conventional stuff.
Planning on following the harvest season up and down the america's, can probably buy bulk, and then dehydrate or otherwise preserve foods, (i.e. on a plastic sheet on a secluded beach somewhere, and vacuum sealed for transport) and then sell them to both cruisers and health stores.
Have a nice little sailboat on the package "no-carbon sail transported"(intend to go engineless), finally those locavores can have their mango's, banana's and coconuts without feeling guilty about the footprint of trucks, airplanes and freighters.

Ya food might not have the best margins, but there is also gems and semi-precious stones, which are cheap in south america and caribbean, but should sell for a pretty penny up in north america. The guy with the best price-point I met a gem show, said he mined it himself in brazil, to cut out the middle-man, and he had to fly there and back, so limited baggage and lots of oversight. Probably would need a prospectors license or something in country for anything more than souvenir amounts though could be worth-while.

Again the food is a good cover since you don't really want to be known for hauling gems around, makes pirates drool too much, so would have to be a small amount used for ballast. Another benefit of the gems is can use it for the minor bribes which are common in the warmer areas of the world (they could give it to their lady friend if they don't like it themselves). Other than gem-shows there are also new-age shops which pay big dollars for gems, or at least sell them at very high prices, who knows maybe some of their customers would also like low-footprint fair-trade gems.

Of course one of the best things about the transported preserved food, is having high quality provisions on board all the time. Assuming business is good can scale up and get or build bigger sailing boats, and have more crew. Could also make a liveaboards co-op kinda thing, where people can join follow the procedures protocols to obtain and process the foods, and then sell them to affiliated retailers.

Of course, if your boat is paid off and you don't have any (or large) credit card debt, no car payments, and have a water maker and solar panels, you can drop the hook and pray for good luck at fishing, and not worry about money!

This pretty much sums up my plan... I own my boat, my car is paid off, and Im outfitting it while I still have a job. My husband is an awesome fisherman and I have excellent IT skills. Im going to finish my degree and settle what little bit of student loans I have BEFORE setting sail (permanently at least). We make a living on land, with rent and utilities etc bringing in 20k/year. Im not looking to bring in a lot of money... Im just looking to fund my sailing habit! Not starve to death while island hopping for the rest of my life... set up a small nest egg for boat maintenance/repairs.

Money will always be an issue even if you have no bills. Transient slips cost money, passing through locks often costs money. Panama Canal for example costs close to $1000.00 to go through. And then there are always the unexpected costs, like haulout for unexpected repairs. Even if you can do the work yourself there will be costs involved.

Back in the 90's, when they were giving credit cards away, I somewhat seriously considered signing up for all I could, taking max cash advance on every one, and sailing off alone forever. Then I got divorced, 'real' life got better, and I found me a mate who loves to sail as much as I do.

Run drugs, guns and liquor. When I was in the Coast Guard that seemed like the business most live-aboards were in. We were constantly being reminded to not overlook Ma and Pa on their sailboat when doing boardings. We would frequently review cases where a sailboat was boarded and the 70+ year old Grandmother and Grandfather had large quantities of illegal drugs on board.

I think from a practical standpoint unless you work part of the year and cruise the rest or are independently wealthy, bartering is the only real way to get the items you need like fuel and provisions.

So I see the illegality of Guns and Drugs, but what defines running liquor? Like what are the limitations before your into trouble for a quantity? coming back into the states I would assume to be the issue from the perspective of a former Coast Guard, wonder what the rules for qty and such of liquor in other regions of the world are... may be an actual option depending on the amount limitations..

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